Untitled
Rayograph (1923) shows the rough outline of a banjo juxtaposed with various odd objects resulting in an ambiguous and engaging image.
Charles Avery's A drawing aboutNothing, apparently showing an emperor flanked by two fantastically costumed courtiers (though the whole point is that it is a pure invention with no story attached) has a compelling oddness, while Anna-Marie Cagiano's
rayograph Eulogy to Utensils is a powerful tribute to the technically equipped modern home.
For instance Man Ray developed the
Rayograph, a kind of photography made without a camera; Duchamps introduced "ready mades" preparing the way for minimalism and the incorporation of everyday objects into the arts.
This year's sale, on 1 November, focuses on twentieth-century fashion imagery, but highlights also include a Man Ray
Rayograph from 1924, estimated at 60,000 [pounds sterling]-80,000 [pounds sterling], a Lee Friedlander image of Kansas City taken in 1965, estimated at 10,000 [pounds sterling]-15,000 [pounds sterling], and a Richard Avedon portrait of Rudolph Nureyev taken in 1962 (Fig.
As "Alias Man Ray" shows, these were the artist's most fruitful years: the years of his ascent to a lucrative career as a commercial photographer and, creatively, the years of his intense engagement with the experimental darkroom techniques of solarization and the
rayograph, which not only, in true Dada fashion, flouted distinctions between photography and painting but also, and perhaps just as crucially for Man Ray, conferred on the former an artistic value and prestige previously reserved for the latter.
For older students, you can present the origins of cyanotypes with artist-biologist, Anna Atkins, or introduce them to Man Ray's
rayographs.
Nguyen-duy's art may also bring to mind such twentieth-century examples as Man Ray's
rayographs and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's photograms.
"
Rayographs" (photograms) seized the imagination of Tzara, who worked with Man Ray to produce a portfolio of 12 images published in December 1922 under the title "Les Champs Delicieux" (The Delicious Fields).